Familiar Faces
by ncfan
Summary: Valinor and its people are already familiar to Elrond.


I own nothing.

* * *

The Blessed Realm seems more real than the Middle-Earth Elrond left behind, and he starts to wonder if that's not because he grew up on stories of Valinor in its golden age, and not of Middle-Earth. He can walk down the streets of Tirion and know where to find a certain shop, or a fountain or a bridge, and occasionally his eyes will sting when he comes to a park on the southeastern side of the city (_There, I would play for the birds, the trees, for anyone who'd listen_, Elrond had once been told). Elrond has elected not to live in Tirion, or in any other city for that matter. Where he and Celebrían have chosen to live is within walking distance of Tirion, but Celebrían is easily overwhelmed by the press of crowds, and Elrond by his memories.

"If you want to know how I recognized you, I've seen your name and face in the Tapestries, and that's my cousin's harp you're carrying."

Fingon smiles at him, and Elrond thinks that he is just how Maglor and Maedhros described him. Tall and long-legged, with black hair braided with gold, with honest eyes _and when he smiled one end of his mouth would turn up higher than the other_, Maedhros had said, and now Elrond sees his recollections being borne out. When he spoke of his cousin, though he had died and his death had brought Maedhros much grief, Maedhros's grim, dour face would soften and years would fall from him, and Elrond and Elros could see why Nerdanel had named her eldest son "well-shaped one."

Elrond manages to shake off his shock soon enough to keep Fingon's smile from faltering, and for all the time in which they speak, he can't shake off the wish that Maedhros was here too, so that he could see his cousin again and find the peace of mind he had always lacked when Elrond knew him.

-0-0-0-

_Findaráto, Finrod in the Sindarin tongue, little ones—you might know him better by that name—fell helping Beren to retrieve one of Father's Silmarils from Morgoth, for that was the bride-price for the hand of Lúthien Tinúviel, whom Beren loved._

_Oh, I am quite sure Finrod was released from the Halls of Mandos quickly enough, _Maglor had assured them, when he saw his two little charges' crestfallen faces. _If he's not been released yet, he will be soon, and when he is, I've no doubt that he'll marry his sweetheart Amarië—_here Maglor had run his fingers over the ring of twisted gold he always wore on his left ring finger, a far-away look coming over his face—_and become the proud father of any number of golden-haired daughters._

Celebrían and Galadriel have decided to visit Finrod, whom they count as uncle and brother, respectively, and Elrond, accompanying them, marvels at how close Maglor was to predicting his cousin's future perfectly. Finrod and Amarië's three young, quite golden-haired daughters squeal in delight and rush out from the gate to greet their aunt and cousins, their parents walking at a more leisurely pace behind them.

Inside (for the sun is beating down on their backs this day), Elrond and Celebrían sit at a window, but close enough to hear Finrod murmur to his sister, "Artanis, did your husband actually give you a date for when he would be sailing?"

Galadriel answers without skipping a beat, serene and unruffled, "Nay. Celeborn will sail in his own time; I've no doubt of that."

Finrod grins at her. "And then you'll be free to parade your Moriquendë husband in front of the whole of Valinor, sister; how I have longed for that day."

Elrond finds this comment passing strange, but beside him, Celebrían starts to quake with restrained laughter, eyes filling with the mirth she has for so long lacked, and still mostly lacks. It's good to see it there again. Waving a pale hand in front of her face, she catches his eye and whispers, "That was one of the most unsettling—and amusing—things about coming to live in Valinor, Elrond: discovering that Mother has something of a reputation here, and _not_ for being the wise, farsighted ruler of Lothlórien."

The image of his mother-in-law having "a reputation" for _anything_ is decidedly disquieting, and Elrond isn't sure if it's from amusement or that disquiet that he too finds himself shaking with repressed laughter. Galadriel's green gaze falling upon them, and her stage whisper to her brother, "Don't look now, Findaráto, but my daughter and son-in-law find something amusing about this discussion", breaks all hope for discretion on their parts, and Elrond and Celebrían throw all caution to the wind and promptly break down laughing.

-0-0-0-

"I can not profess to be sure just how much you know about either of us, Elrond."

"In truth, of the parents of Elwing and Eärendil, you were the only one Maglor knew well enough to tell me anything about at all."

Idril purses her lips, puts her right hand on her hip, and not for the first time Elrond thinks she looks entirely too young to be his grandmother, as she says, "Well I should hope that Cousin Makalaurë remembered me! I may have been a young elleth the last time we met, but the idea of being so unmemorable that he could not tell you anything about me is rather insulting!"

It wasn't terribly long after his arrival in Valinor that Idril and Tuor sent an invitation for him to visit. Celebrían had lived with them before Elrond had arrived in Valinor (and wouldn't elaborate on why she wasn't living with her mother's relatives). They had happened to be away from Tirion when Elrond had arrived, but Celebrían had assured him that they were both quite friendly, and wouldn't think any less of him for not knowing a thing about either of them. Thus he found himself walking to a rather small (all things considered) house in Tirion this morning, and greeted at the door by a brightly-smiling Idril and a significantly more sedate Tuor, who in contrast to his wife did look like he could be someone's grandparent. He had an outward air of maturity that Idril lacked, and also, Elrond had to wonder why the Valar had chosen, if Tuor had not looked this way when he and his wife had reached the shores of Aman, to grant Tuor immortal life set in late middle age. He does not have a look of extreme age about him, but Tuor's sandy hair is flecked with white and his bearded face is deeply lined about his mouth and eyes.

Elrond looks at Idril, seated across from him at the sitting room table, and thinks that here is another he has just now met, but feels as though he already knows. Though indeed Idril had been a child when last she and Maglor met, Maglor's descriptions of her remain strikingly apt. _Gay and golden-haired, golden as the light of Laurelin, _he had called her, with a fond smile gracing his lips. _Clever and friendly, and very opinionated. Itarillë, Idril as you would know her, always knew what she wanted. She was just the sort who would take one of the Edain to wed; she would not care for the kindred of her beloved, if she did indeed love him._

"I'm not surprised that Makalaurë decided to take care of you and Elros," Idril goes on. Tuor, slouching slightly in his chair, sips his tea, clearly content to let his wife talk, though he smiles at Elrond over the top of the cup, and Elrond gives him a slightly overwhelmed smile back. "He was always very fond of children." She smirks. "Though given how absentminded I remember him being, I'm amazed the two of you survived to adulthood without there being some sort of catastrophic incident concerning his inability to remember basic details on how to be a responsible parent."

That comment brings back so many memories, and Elrond's terse reply, "I suppose he had changed by the time we met him," speaks both to the pleasure of remembering, and to the pain of it.

Idril snorts. "Or perhaps Cousin Russandol was hovering over his shoulder at every turn to make sure he remembered to feed you, and matters such as that."

She pauses to take a long draught of her tea, smiling at the fragrance and taste of it. Elrond spends these silent moments—it's a marvel, how talkative she is—staring down into his cup, feeling both joy at meeting these two at long last, and some strange ache behind that joy. That's how he's felt most of the time he's met relatives he'd never known before coming to Valinor, and how he especially feels about these two. Idril and Tuor are kind, and friendly, and do not judge him for who he is, nor where he came from, nor whom he was raised by, but when he thinks of 'grandparents', they are not the ones who spring to mind. Nor are Dior and Nimloth the names that come into Elrond's head when he thinks of his grandparents.

The silent moment passes, and Idril draws a deep, slightly shuddering breath. Suddenly, she appears immature no longer—her eyes are heavy and preoccupied, and this one difference adds years to her face in the way that the passage of years never could. "I'm sorry for what happened to you and Elros," she tells him quietly, running her finger over the rim of her cup. "I'm sorry that Eärendil and Elwing weren't—" she cuts herself off, blinking rapidly. "I could tell that there was something about Elwing that wasn't right," she comments suddenly, and Elrond starts to feel his pulse race, and he wishes she would talk about something else, "I always could. There was something about here that seemed unreal; she never seemed to be walking in the same world as the rest of us. But I was fond of her and I thought to myself that she was a child who had lost her kingdom, her home, and her entire family, lost everything in one fell stroke, and attributed her strangeness to that. I did not know that Dior's Silmaril had been saved. None of the survivors of Doriath, not Elwing nor any of the others who had come with her, would say aught of it, and I had thought it lost, for Fëanáro's sons would not have kept quiet if they had recovered it. She only began wearing it openly after Tuor and I had left for Aman. I did not know Elwing had the Silmaril, Elrond, you must believe me," she pleads urgently.

"Learning what happened to you and your brother," Tuor adds, speaking for the first time since they sat down at the table, "makes us wish that we had tarried in Middle-Earth a few years longer."

Elrond's voice sticks in his throat, and suddenly the air in the room seems quite stifling, under the weight of his Idril and Tuor's stares. His mind fills with the memory of the day Maglor and Maedhros had found them. Eärendil was gone and Elwing had vanished, no matter where they went they couldn't find her, and then a tall Elf in blood-splattered armor with a drawn, equally blood-splattered sword had burst into the room where they were hiding. _But then he had spoken softly to us, sheathing his sword and dropping to his knees, trying to coax us away from the window, though we did not know then why he was so concerned. _Elrond squeezed his eyes shut.

_Don't be afraid. Come away from the window, little ones. Please. I will not harm you._

_We did not love him then. That came later. Then, we only feared him, but the city was burning all around us, and he alone out of everyone around us still seemed sane. We feared him, but we feared him less than the others. _Finally, Elrond is able to formulate a response. Later, he will not for the life of him remember what it is he said, only that it seemed to satisfy Idril and Tuor.

"I'm amazed at myself," Idril remarks moodily, "that I could spot the darkness in Maeglin but not see that there was something wrong with Elwing. Well, I am glad that you were loved and looked after, even if—" she pauses, staring intently over Elrond's head out the window. Then, suddenly, Idril becomes the bright, carefree Elf she had seemed before as she springs out of her seat and runs out the door. "Aunt Irissë!" she shrieks.

Elrond cranes his neck around to see a tall nís with bushy dark hair coming down the path, only to be intercepted and practically tackled by Idril. Tuor chuckles, and Elrond turns his gaze back to him. "Amazing," Tuor remarks, eyes twinkling. "All this time has passed, and she still hero-worships her aunt. I think I could so with something a bit stronger than tea," he says, nodding at the teapot in the middle of the table as he rises from his chair. "Would you care for any mead?"

"Oh, no thank you."

Tuor shrugs—"Your loss; Aredhel will want some though, she's never cared for tea"—and begins rooting through a nearby cabinet for a bottle of mead. "Idril's been making noises about wanting more children," he calls from across the room. "How do you feel about having very tiny aunts and uncles?"

Frankly, the thought sounds positively terrifying, even for an Elf who raised three children, two of whom were extremely mischievous identical twins, and a foster-son much later—perhaps it's the idea of small children with Idril's exuberant, high-energy personality that's giving him the trouble. However, it probably wouldn't do to say so out loud, so Elrond replies, "I don't see how that's my decision to make."

To this, Tuor gives a barking laugh, as he sits back down at the table, placing a bottle of mead and two glasses (likely one for him and Aredhel) down on the table. "Relax. You won't be made to watch any of them." He casts a fond glance out the window. "I never knew she could get like this until we came here, you know. In Gondolin, Idril was weighed down with many cares and fears—she had learned to be careful about what she said, how she said it and when she said it. But once we came here, it was as though all that had never happened. If you feel overwhelmed, she doesn't know it."

Elrond nods.

"And you might profit from speaking to Aredhel. She was a great friend of the sons of Fëanor before the Darkening, though from what I understand she was closer to the third-born than she was to your foster-father."

And indeed, Elrond and Aredhel do speak to each other at length. Aredhel is blunt and plain-spoken, and does not feel the need to couch her words in any manner whatsoever. She smiles faintly at him out of a pale face, her silver-blue eyes glinting in the light as she downs a glass of Tuor's mead.

It's a relief. Not once before now has Elrond felt able to speak openly of the sons of Fëanor, in either a complimentary or derogatory way. He might have with Fingon, but he's not seen Fingon since the day they met on the bridge. Aredhel confesses to feel it a relief too, to finally be able to speak openly of her cousins with someone who did not think of them only as bloodthirsty killers, or who was not overcome by the pain of speaking of the past. But as this goes on, as Aredhel's eyes glaze over in reminiscence and she tells him tales that fill in so many blanks, it does hurt, it does bring him pain, as his heart aches for the past as it has not done for more than a full Age of the Sun, for everyone that he has lost, and never found again.

-0-0-0-

Tirion has become a haunt of memories, and Elrond had been here less than a year. It's not exactly the way he had imagined it in his dreams, but the more he's here, the more familiar it seems, and not because he has seen it with his own eyes. He'd seen it through Maglor's eyes first, loving and sad, as he whispered of his home with the despondence of one who was convinced that he would never see it again. Home had become a dream to him, and then he himself became a dream, passing out of history and legend. Not dead, probably. Just vanished. As good as dead, though, for Elrond does not know if he will ever see him again.

But if more than two Ages of the Sun of life have taught Elrond anything, it's that memories can not be avoided and are not to be feared or shied away from, so he finds himself venturing often into Tirion. The wide streets bustle with carriages, wagons, and Elves out on foot, as he is now. There is safe anonymity in the crowds milling about the cobblestone streets, or at least there is most of the time, until he is spotted by some friend or comrade-in-arms who died centuries ago. Those encounters are mostly pleasant, but inevitably made bittersweet by the memory of separation and loss, of whole kingdoms burning.

Elrond finds himself walking down the main thoroughfare yet again come lunchtime, making his way towards an apothecary to pick up herbs for a sleeping potion for Frodo. It would have been easy enough to send a servant ahead, but Elrond grew used to doing these things himself in Imladris, and sees no reason why he should behave differently now.

A flash of red hair catches his eye, and Elrond starts, nearly crying out, until he realizes that it is not Maedhros, released from the Halls of Mandos, that he sees. Two nissi are coming off the street, walking in such close proximity to one another that they are clearly here, for whatever reason, together. The red-haired nís is tall, even by the standards of Noldorin Elves, long-limbed and raw-boned, with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and her hair drawn away from her face. Her pace is brisk, her eyes clear. Her companion is shorter and slimmer, dark-haired and pale. She carries a cherry-wood harp in her arms and wears a ring of twisted gold on her left hand.

Their gazes meet. The two nissi stop and look at him, recognition coming over their faces. Something gleams in the eyes of the red-haired nís, but she smiles at him nonetheless. The dark-haired nís looks at him and a spasm of pain passes over her face, and Elrond recognizes it immediately as a pain very much like his own.

They stare at each other in silence for a very long time. Then, Elrond looks at the red-haired nís. "Grandmother?" he tries uncertainly.

Nerdanel nods, her smile widening, and her companion motions for him to join them.

* * *

Nís—woman (plural: nissi)


End file.
